


Bringing Summer Home

by kitsuneasika



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series)
Genre: F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-28
Updated: 2010-08-28
Packaged: 2017-11-11 02:47:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/473639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitsuneasika/pseuds/kitsuneasika
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Summer begins, and Hikari comes back home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bringing Summer Home

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the Pokemon Summer Fic Exchange in 2010 over at [pokegamefic](http://pokegamefic.livejournal.com/). My recipient used 'Hikari' and 'Jun' instead of 'Dawn' and 'Jun' in their request, which is why I did the same in this particular piece.
> 
> I do not claim any ownership over Pokemon.

Sinnoh is a cold region, where autumn days are tinged with snow and the warmth of spring grazes over them just enough to let things grow. It is not until summer that the heat arrived, heat that regions like Hoenn and Kanto would scoff at. Summer is a beautiful, wonderful time, where the leaves on the trees flourish a deep green, and the flowers of Floaroma Town bloom bright and wonderful; where the grass grows thick and lush and fruit hangs heavy on the boughs of the trees. Summers are loved and cherished and worth waiting through all the months of cold for. 

Jun loves summer. He loves all seasons, as he isn't one to get down because of a little cold weather, but he loves summer best. When he looks back (which isn't often, as the now is too exciting and the future too bright to waste time looking back), it seems like his childhood was all summer, a blur of sunshine and splashing around at the lake and climbing trees and playing in the mud, with only a few definite memories dotting the landscape here and there. 

Summer is adventure and excitement and all the things Jun loved wrapped up into one. It was a summer when he was ten when he first got his Infernape, a Chimchar then, and started on his journey. It was a summer when he was eight when he first saw a glimpse of that shimmering figure over the lake. It was a summer when he was six when Hikari told him that she was going to be champion of Sinnoh, and he declared himself her rival. And it was a summer he could barely remember when he was three when he first met Hikari, fresh from Floaroma town and smiling as brightly as the flowers she had been raised around.  


* * *

  
She comes back home to Twinleaf in June, like she has every year since she first became champion five years ago, and he flies back the next morning on his Staraptor, like he has done every year for the last five years.

He goes to her house first, and lets himself in with a spare key before going straight upstairs to her room. He slams the door open and before he can challenge her to a battle like any good rival would, he finds a pillow in his face.

"No, Jun, I am not going to have a battle with you at two o'clock in the morning," Hikari says, propped up by her elbow, her eyes bleary and half-closed from sleep. Her hair is mussed, strands flying each way. She would never be caught dead in public with her hair looking like that, and it strikes him suddenly that he's one of the only ones she lets see her this way.

He doesn't say any of this. She wouldn't appreciate it, and he's learned long ago not to make Hikari too annoyed, or he might end up hanging from the rafters. (He doesn't admit, even to himself, that it's because she would be embarrassed and uncomfortable and that he doesn't want to make her feel that way.) Instead, he scoffs at what she had said, and exclaims, "I'll fine you two million if you don't battle me!"

She laughs then, a sure sign that she's not _too_ annoyed with him anymore, and rubs the last remnants of sleep away from her eyes. "I'm already more in debt to you then I could ever pay back, even with a champion's salary," she tells him, her tone light. "Two million won't make much of a difference. I'll battle you in the morning."

"I'm not leaving until we have our battle," he presses on stubbornly, crossing his arms.

"Goodnight," she says firmly, and pulls her blanket over her head. The minutes that pass are silent, awkward, with both of them stubbornly holding their positions.

It is Hikari that breaks first, pulling down her blankets once more. She exhales, loudly. "Could you not stand there like something out of a horror movie?"

"I'm not leaving until I get my battle," he reminds her.

"Yes, I know _that_. But could you at least lay down or something? I feel like I'm about to get eaten."

"No way! Your floor's _hard_! Last time I did that, I was black and blue for weeks!"

"But I gave you a pillow this time!"  


* * *

  
The argument goes on for some time, but it is Hikari that eventually loses, and soon they somehow find themselves sharing a bed like they had when they were little kids. Somehow, she isn't too surprised— Pokémon battles seem to be the only time when she wins against Jun. 

He's restless, always shifting and moving so that she can never truly settle down. She would accuse him of doing it on purpose, trying to make her give up on sleeping and finally battle him, but she's lost too many hours of sleep and had too many bruises on her shins growing up to do that. The fact is, Jun has always been restless, whether he is asleep or awake. 

Restless and determined— a dangerous combination, she can't help but think. When he wants something, he goes straight for it, and sometimes she thinks that the title of champion is the only thing he's ever gone after and never gotten. She's never admitted it to anyone, but if it weren't for Jun always going after her and challenging her, she sometimes thinks that she would have lost the title of champion long ago. Trainers get better every year, and she battles so little these days that he's the only one whipping her into shape, nearly beating her every time using only heart and sheer determination.

Sometimes (and this is the one thing she barely ever admits, even to herself) she's afraid of losing to him. That if she loses, he'll keep on going forward to the next challenge, and she'll be left behind in the dust. And if she's a little more honest, she's always been afraid of that in some form. She's always wanted to be champion, but it was because of Jun she stayed up late, reading everything she could on Pokémon and battling. She was good, but so was Jun and he was too impatient for strategies, and so she would make that her strength. That's what she had thought, and that is what she relies on— that as long as she can keep finding new ways to beat him, he will stay.

It's not until Jun speaks up that she realizes that she has been mumbling under her breath, her forehead scrunched together and her mouth twisted into a frown. "Penny for your thoughts?" he asks, his words light despite how serious he looks, and she's tempted to laugh it off and start teasing him like she always does.

Instead, the words come tumbling out without her permission, one after another. "What are you going to do when you finally beat me?" 

She regrets speaking instantly, but there's nothing she can do about it now. Instead, she holds her breath, her eyes searching his face for some sort of answer even as she half-hopes he won't reply.

He blinks at her, looking almost confused. "Then we'll beat whoever's better, of course," he says like it's the most obvious thing in the world. 

"We?" she repeats softly, unsure.

"Of course!" he says, loudly. "You're my rival! I need someone good to battle, or it won't be any fun at all!"

She stares at him for a moment, trying to wrap her mind around what he just said. And then, just like that, the worries that have plaguing her for so long just melt away, and she finds herself smiling and laughing like she had when she beat Cynthia, all relief and happiness.

And she doesn't know that to Jun, summer has just arrived with her smile.


End file.
